soul of baseball

Chapter 463 Legend No. 42

In college games, the transportation between the home and away games is usually by bus, but this time the cross-league game is against UCLA in the Parker Twelve League. The opponent is far away in Los Angeles on the west coast. It is impossible to take a car.

Shen Qin has experienced this kind of thing with everyone wearing team uniforms and flying together twice, once when he played for the Chinese team in the WBC, and once when he played for Puerto Rico's U23 qualifying match.

But those games all contain a kind of national sentiment, which is not so random after all.

This time it was completely different, surrounded by classmates of similar age, wearing the same team uniform, and everyone seemed to be in high spirits~ Maybe this is the feeling of youth?

What was your college life like?read!read!read!There is absolutely no such thing as sports.It's not that I didn't yearn for it. After all, when I was in junior high school, my studies were easy, and I also worked hard to play basketball, although my skills were not good enough.

At that time, my roommate played basketball downstairs in the dormitory every day, and when I was tired from reading, I would look at the window for a while.In the earliest days, roommates would come to invite him, but the number of rejections was too high, and that was it.

Group life, friends?
Those who secretly longed for it in their hearts now have it all!
Shen Qin looked at his teammates wearing team uniforms and was very happy.

"Are you happy because you want to meet your friends?" Coach's golden retriever came over: "Hey, are you excited too?"

friend?The cat is at UCLA! "I won't let the water go!"

Coach laughed: "UCLA doesn't need us to release water. Their overall strength is very strong. You will know it after they have played. Compared with DH, it is really the most exciting to squat in the audience? I hope you still say that when you lose. "

Among all the college teams, the one Shen Qin knows best is the UCLA Blues who played the whole vacation together (changed for special reasons), which is also Xichuan's former team. It should be easier to play, right?

This idea was ruthlessly ridiculed by Xi Chuan behind: "Can you stop fantasizing? During the holidays, except for Jr. Ball and Maoer, the rest of the players were not on the 25-man list."

Shen Qin stared, didn't that mean the main force?So the games that UMBC players like me work hard to play are dispensable in their eyes?And why is Xi Chuan showing a mocking face?Hey Hey hey!Who is your own person?The guy hasn't been normal since the day he played.

"Oh! This kind of cross-league competition will only be repeated for decades. The last time UMBC faced UCLA was 17 years ago. By the way, I forgot to mention that their home court is called Robinson."

(There is a movie about No. 42 legend, if you are interested, you can watch it)

Robinson was a person, a man who represented a special milestone in baseball history.Shen Qin was stunned, even he, an outsider, knew exactly what the name meant.

In contemporary baseball, every team retires the same back number, the legendary '42'!
No. 42 belongs to Jackie Robinson.

It is a wealthy team, a truly wealthy team with a rich history!

The United States is a country with very intense racial discrimination, especially for baseball, a sport that once belonged only to 'gentlemen'.

The big leagues at that time belonged to whites, and only to whites!They practiced racial segregation.

Black people can only play baseball in the Negro League, a baseball league for only black people.

Robinson, of course, played there.

Before that, he was studying at UCLA.Naturally, there is nothing to say about his athletic talent. At that time, he was inhumanly taking into account four sports at the same time, baseball, rugby, baseball and track and field.Undoubtedly, this can only be done with the physical fitness of a genius. After all, all the data back then were immature, and no one knew what was the best for the body. What sports medicine and nutrition?I'm afraid no one would have thought about it then.

After graduation, the baseball great actually chose to play professional football, and never thought about continuing the sport of baseball.

Only then the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, which unexpectedly ended Robinson's football career.

After being conscripted into the army, Second Lieutenant Robinson's military career was not smooth, he was still subjected to racial discrimination, and was even sent to a military court in the end.

This suffering young man was eventually sent to the major leagues. The senior executives are determined to change this deformed league environment, hoping to use Robinson as an entry point to slowly lift the isolation.

Robinson is well aware of what it means to step into a major league filled with white men, and he may encounter all kinds of bullying, anger from fans and so on.

But Robinson agreed!No matter how difficult the process is, he wants to give black people like himself a chance to enter the major leagues through his own efforts.

Fight for white and black players to get along on an equal footing and tell them that skin color doesn't separate us!
The process was naturally difficult. Robinson was not allowed to live in a hotel with his teammates in the minor leagues; various activities later threatened to cancel if he joined.

It's hard to imagine how much pressure is like that. It's like walking into a stadium with [-] people, and all the fans are swearing and telling you to get out.

Also consider whether it will drag teammates and the team.

Robinson withstood the pressure and paid a lot.Finally, at the age of 28, he represented the Dodgers in the major leagues.

On that day, the first black appeared in a major league that belonged exclusively to whites, and the black fans cheered and jumped for joy!

They swarmed into the arena, screaming for their heroes!

But not all the players in the major leagues support it. Some of Robinson's teammates even said that they would rather sit on the sidelines than play with a black man on the court!

Fortunately, people always bow to money!White people don't stop making their money because they hate black people.Robinson could bring them a large black audience and make them more money.

Without Robinson, there would be no major league where players of different colors can play together today.

"Speaking of it, you don't know." Xi Chuanlong smiled: "The St. Louis Cardinals were also one of the people who threatened him at that time! You, your favorite team, also did this kind of thing!"

Speaking of this, Shen Qin is very calm: "Society is progressing, and human beings are also progressing. Now the Cardinals have black players and Latinos. Everyone gets along very well. Yuri is Latino. Everyone likes him. Not only Not only the black and white teammates, but also the fans, St. Louis is a very inclusive city! Theirs is good now! So why are you talking weirdly?"

Yo!Learn to refute!
(End of this chapter)